any a small camera to put down spark plug hole ?

[beaulieu]

Hi

is there any small camera that you can put down a spark plug hole to inspect the bore etc ?

I guess it would need a light too ?

it can be USB so I could hook it up to the laptop,
or anything else

Any ideas ?

Beaulieu

 

[Bugeye58]

Well, you can get a borescope with provisions for a camera, but it'll cost an arm and a leg. I've got some borescope literature around here somewhere. I'll see if I can dig it up.
Or, you could just Google "borescope" and see what's currently available.
Jeff

 

[beaulieu]

yeah I need something lots cheaper than medical grade,

maybe "pep boys" grade /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

or home made out of a webcam ?

Beaulieu

 

[beaulieu]

Re: any a small camera to put down spark plug hol

ANYONE TRY THESE

https://www.foranythingautomotive.com/slipv618.html

 

[Steve]

Re: any a small camera to put down spark plug hol

Griots Garage sell a boroscope.......

https://www.griotsgarage.com

 

[beaulieu]

Re: any a small camera to put down spark plug hol

Hi

has anyone used these ?

is it even worth buying ?

Many times there is a motor from an unknown source,

it would be nice to be able to look in it and see if it has water damage , a burned piston etc

Beaulieu

 

[AweMan]

Re: any a small camera to put down spark plug hol

Hi

has anyone used these ?

is it even worth buying ?

<u>Many times there is a motor from an unknown source, </u>

it would be nice to be able to look in it and see if it has water damage , a burned piston etc

Beaulieu

A comprehensive compression test will tell you about all you need to know about the cylinder condition of any engine. Either it has good compression or not, if not you tear it apart and find out whats wrong. Of course if the engine has no provision to turn it over then a scope would be nice to look inside each cylinder to see what if any damage is there, but having said that, you can`t look at the berrings crank, cam or mains. A engine from an unknown source I would suspect of having some type of problem. If you really need it or parts of it you suspect the worst and hope for the best. Buy it as cheaply as possible!
P.S. you can`t look for internal cracks in the castings either with a borescope.
If you are going to purchase it it`s best to tear it down at the sellers establishment on the condition if it meets your specifications you`ll be obligated to buy it at a specified price. I would never purchase an "Unknown" and expect to install it in my car and drive away. If I purchased it at all it would be to use for parts or rebuilding
Get a money back guarentee in writing that it is as advertised.

 

[beaulieu]

Re: any a small camera to put down spark plug hol

Hi

I understand that ,

but at a swap meet etc it would be nice to at least have a look,

i do not mind spending a couple hundred bucks if they work but I just have never seen one in use....

Beaulieu

 

[foxtrapper]

They aren't cheap, but there is a thing called a boriscope. Spelling varies, as does the name. Generally cost a few hundred dollars and up. They let you look into engines through the spark plug hole and such.

Here's the cheapest one I know of.
https://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=91565

 

[ecurie_ecosse]

https://www.eastwood.com have two,an 18" at $229.99 and 36" at $274.99.

As you say,not cheap.But if you want to see inside the cylinders,worth the money.

Stuart.

 

[beaulieu]

THanks guys

I have seen a few on ebay too , $150-@250

but I have no idea what is a good one and what is a junk one /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif

Beaulieu

 

[foxtrapper]

I've used scopes for years on jet engine inspections. They're harder to use than you expect. Because you're close up to the surfaces, and looking at a very small area, it's quite difficult to figure out where you are, and to judge what you're looking at. Ok, there's a scratch. How deep is that scratch, how long is it? Even with a ruler built into the lens, it's darn hard to tell.

It's sorta like trying to examine something with one of those extension mirrors. Hard to do, and even harder to judge the condition of things you're looking at.

A cheap scope will look straight ahead, out the end of the fiber optic strand. That lets you look at the face of the piston, which isn't very usefull.

A step up will have a mirror you can clip onto the tip. This lets you look sideways. Now you can look at the piston wall.

To look backwards at the cylinder top and valves, you'd need to make your own mirror, as I've never seen one that did this.

Then there's the matter of light. Really cheap ones may not have a light, so you can't see anything. Most will have the light running through the optic cable strand, so the light points straight ahead. This means when using a mirror you're shining the light on the mirror you're looking at. Tends to defeat your ability to see in the mirror.

Really nice scopes have control cables along the fiber optic cable to bend it around. This will look backwards, *if* it can turn tightly enough in the cylinder bore. That's a small hole, so many will not be able to do it.

Used scopes often have broken strands. Each broken strand is a black pixel in the display. The more broken strands, the more blacked out pixels you've got. Beware of this with e-bay used scopes.

 

[beaulieu]

Thank you for tekking us your real world experiances with these,

If its that hard with aircraft quality ones , then the Harbior Freight ones must be close to worthless /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif

I hate to think that because in theory it would be a great addition to my toolbox.

Any thoughts of using a web cam or something like that ?

Beaulieu

 

[foxtrapper]

I wouldn't assume the harbor freight scopes are close to worthless. But I've never held one of theirs either, so I really can't say. 20 years ago, fiber optic technology was a way out there thing. Expensive and exotic. Today, it's everywhere, run of the mill normal, and pretty cheap. So harbor freight type units may work just fine.

There's no reason a sensor from a digital camera couldn't be put on a probe with the wires running back up to display. I've never seen this either, but it probably does exist somewhere. Pixel resolution would be key, but the quality has gone up and the price dropped. It's to the point now that you could almost justify buying one of those cheap $20 kiddie cameras just to take it apart and see if you could make it work this way.

 

[Wray]

I looked at one yesterday from Super Circuits. A real camera with 380 lines, color, 3.5mm lens. Lux is 1.5, nothing to write home about, but, it is less than 1/3" square. I don't know if it would fit through a spark plug hole but if it did it sure would beat a fiber scope camera. You would have to provide a light sourceof some kind.

 

[DrEntropy]

Call me old-fashioned, but for the price of a head gasket and some time you'd get a GOOD look at all the bits in question. And you'd be half-way to fixing any problems, too.

 

[Banjo]

The only problem I see using a dismantled web cam is that you still need a light source, and a good one at that. One of those flexible "streamlights" might work. I'd still be skeptical about getting a camara lense to fit through a plug hole.
If you use one often enough, then getting one with the mirror attachment would be good, and they have lots of other uses too. But spring a bit extra. Don't buy the cheapest one you can find.

 

[beaulieu]

Well I guess I need to make up a test sample, maybe a motorcycle head, barrel and piston.

and play with it some , I can imagine that you cannot get much down a spark plug hole , and even worse if the plug hole is at an angle,

But I can see it would be a useful tool if I can get one to work

Beaulieu

 

[Ken G]

Re: any a small camera to put down spark plug hol

First attempt with the new system. We shall see!

Four years ago I too wanted to look at valves via the plug-holes (18 mm so larger than some), and rigged a tiny mirror on the end of a rod ... with very little success.

You can buy tiny black and white cameras, 3/8 inch or 9.5 mm square, that would fit, but as someone mentioned, the main problem is that they are focussed at infinity, whereas for this inspection purpose you need to focus at an inch or so. Is anyone an expert on optics who could suggest how this could be done compactly and economically?

As far as a light source is concerned, white leds, as used in flashlights, would work very well, I think. Also, if you settle for B&W, you could use a very poor plastic lens suffering from a lot of chromatic aberration and a nearly monochromatic led, say red or even infra-red to avoid the aberration.

Just a few thoughts! If someone actually comes up with a practical device, I would like to know.

Ken G, 1925 Rover 16/50 (San Francisco)

 

[bugimike]

Re: any a small camera to put down spark plug hol

Griots Garage sell a boroscope.......

https://www.griotsgarage.com

Not to change the thread, but just toss in an aside...While browsing this site I saw the magnet gizmo that attaches to the spin-on filter to trap metal particles magnetically. Not a Bad Idea!! A simple alternative, it seems to me, using the same technology, would be using a strip of magnetic sign material on the filter. It would do the same thing!!